Scanning Thermal Microscopy of a Ternary Polymer

Scanning thermal microscopy on a ternary blend of 60% polypropylene (PP), 20% polystyrene (PS), and 20% polyethylene (PE) by weight. The three components are clearly where the darker the color, the higher the thermal conductivity. As expected from their thermal conductivity values, the oblong regions of PS (0.03 W/m*K) are brightest, the circular regions of PE (0.4 W/m*K) are darkest, and the surrounding matrix of PP (0.12 W/m*K) is somewhere in between these two. Imaged with the MFP-3D AFM. Sample courtesy of Dalia Yablon, Viktor Buccholz, Jean Grabowski, Andy Tsou of Corporate Strategic Research, ExxonMobil Research and Engineering.